


We are here as on a darkling plain

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-30
Updated: 2012-09-30
Packaged: 2017-11-15 07:53:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for The Angels Take Manhattan. He finds her in Amy and Rory’s bedroom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We are here as on a darkling plain

**Author's Note:**

> A really short, quick fic that I just wanted to type out before bed. Story title from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.

He finds her in Amy and Rory’s bedroom, sitting on the floor in that black dress and staring blankly at one of Amy’s discarded sweaters by her foot. In her eyes is a well of unshed tears and his hearts ache at the sight of it – at all the things she never lets him see. Not willing to interrupt even though she almost certainly knows he’s standing there, hovering in the doorway, the Doctor doesn’t move. The sight of his wife doing her best not to cry in the middle of her parent’s bedroom is too much, however, and he casts his gaze around the room.

 

Amy’s clothes and shoes are scattered around the room, Rory’s favorite jacket draped over the end of the bed. There is a stack of books on the nightstand, a clustering of nail polish bottles – each in varying shades of shocking – sits next to it. A hairbrush sits on the dresser. The scent of Amy’s perfume still lingers in the air.

 

It’s as though they’d just run out for another adventure and expected to come right back. But they won’t ever be back again and the Doctor squeezes his eyes tightly shut. He’d had his turn to grieve, and it’s River’s now. She needs him.

 

Turning his eyes back to her, he realizes she has pulled Amy’s sweater into her lap and hugged it to her chest, burying her nose in the fabric with her eyes shut. Unable to stand it any longer, he steps into the room and approaches his wife, crouching down next to her with tears in his eyes.

 

It didn’t matter, she’d said. River lies as well as he does.

 

“Finally decided to join me?” She asks, voice wobbly with tears. “I could sense you lurking out there like a mother hen.”

 

Settling onto the floor next to her, he rests his hand on her knee. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me.”

 

She opens her eyes and looks at him, still cradling that sweater he remembers Amy always wrapping herself up in in the mornings, huddled at the breakfast table and glaring at him for being so cheery. “I always want you, sweetie.”

 

She struggles to lace the words with her usual innuendo but fails and he shakes his head. “Don’t, River.” Taking her hand, he soothes his thumb over her newly healed wrist and tries not to remember the look on her face when he realized what she’d done. “Do you really think you need to hide from me?”

 

Not answering for a moment, River watches his thumb rub over the inside of her wrist and swallows. “It’s easier than seeing the look on your face when I don’t.”

 

He breathes in sharply, hearts stuttering in his chest. “River -”

 

“No,” she says, voice suddenly free of tears and quite firm. “I do what I need to in order to protect you and you can’t stop me.”

 

Shaking his head and suddenly filled with so much anger and frustration at this woman who always puts him first, even when she shouldn’t, even when it means her _life_ , the Doctor pulls his hand from her wrist and tugs it agitatedly through his hair. “And what about me? I don’t get a say? What if occasionally I’d like to protect you, River?”

 

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

 

“I didn’t say you did.” He glances at her and sees that she’s gone back to holding the sweater, knees drawn up to her chest, and the sight of her shutting him out hurts. “But when one’s wife is hurting, one does one’s best to make it better.”

 

River squeezes her eyes shut and blindly reaches out a hand. He takes it instantly, squeezing her fingers and trying to silently convey that he’s going to be here for her the way she is always, always there for him. He looks up and sees for the first time the picture hanging on the wall above them – a picture the Ponds hadn’t felt comfortable displaying in their home – and despite himself, the Doctor smiles.

 

He remembers taking that picture in the control room – River, Amy and Rory huddled together and leaning against the console, grinning at the camera and dressed to the nines for a party in 1920’s Paris. River looks so beautiful, so radiant and happy with her family. And her parents on either side of her hold her close, as if afraid they’ll somehow lose her again.

 

“They loved you, you know,” he says, struggling to keep his voice steady as he tightens his grip on River’s fingers. “So very much.”

 

She nods, still not looking at him. “I know.”

 

He hesitates. “And I love you.”

 

The corner of her mouth quivers and River purses her lips, turning her watery-eyed gaze to him. “I know that too.”

 

Without another thought, the Doctor tugs on his wife’s hand and she scrambles into his arms, curling up on his lap like a child. He wraps her tightly in his arms and buries his face in her hair – thanking the universe that he isn’t alone, that he has River to cling to, River who clings right back. She cries into his neck, her tears hot against his skin and Amelia Pond’s sweater between them.


End file.
